Gascón gets flak over gift

It looks like District Attorney George Gascón is getting a crash course in politics, San Francisco-style.

Depending on who you ask, Gascón has either done everything he can to disclose he got a gift of $26,445 in furniture and related services from politically connected backers, or the city’s top prosecutor may have violated at least one law.

Sorting out the mess requires navigating a tangle of city and state rules designed to shed light on the influence of money in politics.

This much we know: Gascón filed disclosures about the furniture gift, but they were late, and the whole issue has become a bit of a political hot potato.

A government watchdog filed a complaint with the state Fair Political Practices Commission this week contending that Gascón improperly disclosed the gifts, including that they were an unreported campaign contribution or a gift to an individual that exceeds the $440 limit.

Gascón maintains the furniture is a gift to the city, not him.

City supervisors have also been shying away from attaching their names to a resolution retroactively approving the gift that is now before the Board of Supervisors. City law requires the board to approve any gifts to a department of $10,000 or more.

Some of those same supervisors, though, also said privately they will vote to approve the gift and the situation was being overblown.

“There is no there there, ” said Cristine DeBerry, Gascón’s chief of staff. “The whole point of these things is you can’t do it in secret. … We disclosed (the gift). We disclosed it to everybody we could think to disclose it to.”

Charles Marsteller, former head of the good-government group Common Cause in San Francisco, contends in the seven-page complaint that Gascón failed to properly report the payments for the furniture, including a glass-top desk and chrome-framed chairs for Gascón’s office and a sofa for the domestic-violence victims’ waiting room across the hall.

Twelve donors paid for the furniture starting in October 2012, including $9,999 from politically connected tech investor Ron Conway, $2,000 from the city’s protocol chief Charlotte Schultz, and $1,500 from former police and fire Commissioner Victor Makras and his real estate company.

State rules require gifts to be disclosed within 30 days after use of the payment, and Gascón’s office didn’t do that until last month.

DeBerry said fault on the timing lay with her. Gascón’s office also sought a board resolution approving the gift.

Among the donations was $1,000 from Nibbi Brothers Contractors on Nov. 30, 2012.

Gascón’s office opened an investigation into the company in August 2011 over an accident at a six-story apartment building under construction at 2235 Third St. when four workers were injured in a roof collapse. His office, though, has deferred to Cal/OSHA inspectors on any criminal investigation in the matter, and the donations will play no role in how any potential case is handled, DeBerry said.